Colorado is ready for the return of the Big Lie. After all, it never really went away. It just got a little quieter after more than 60 courts across the country unequivocally ruled that the outcome of the 2020 presidential election was fair and true, and that it was just a giant hoax.
But it’s an election year, and potential losers are playing it safe. That’s why the big lie is making a comeback.
Dealing with it is a bit like playing whack-a-mole—you have to keep squashing the oddities wherever they appear. But here in Colorado, we have what it takes to drop the hammer.
If you don’t believe that, just ask Tina Peters, a former Mesa County official who was convicted last week of four felonies and three misdemeanors in connection with her efforts to falsify evidence in support of the Big Liar.
The message is clear: When it comes to voter fraud, we don’t mess around. The Peters case is a high-profile example of the state holding election officials accountable to protect the integrity of the process.
So when Trump lashed out on Truth Social last week, claiming that mail-in voting was introduced by Governor Jared Polis and had turned Colorado into “a POLITICAL SWAMP where even being ahead wouldn’t make a difference!” it unleashed a storm of righteous indignation.
9News anchor Kyle Clark was quick to analyze Trump’s rant, pointing out that the introduction of mail-in voting was the result of a bipartisan initiative that began years before Polis was elected governor and that it was “implemented by a Republican Secretary of State.”
Clark also pointed out that the Heritage Foundation, which is anything but a left-wing foundation, has uncovered only 15 cases of voter fraud in the ten years since mail-in voting was introduced in Colorado.
“The two most high-profile cases involved a former Republican chairman and a man suspected of killing his wife who admitted to voting for Trump,” he said.
Both were arrested and prosecuted.
Catching fraudsters is one strategy to ensure free and fair elections in Colorado, but there are several others.
Secretary of State Jena Griswold said protecting elections requires a range of programs to ensure the integrity of the election process, including using paper ballots because they “cannot be hacked,” maintaining the security of vote-counting equipment, maintaining a strict chain of custody for all ballots and equipment, conducting background checks on poll workers, establishing a cyber command center to defend against potential threats to systems, and assembling bipartisan teams to test equipment and monitor ballot audits.
Nevertheless, she knows that there will always be skeptics and doubters.
Given the amount of misinformation that has been circulating about mail-in voting since 2016, “some people’s trust has been shaken,” she said. “We may not be able to convince everyone, but we want to make sure there is enough good information available.”
It seems to be working. 90 percent of voters are voting by mail, she said.
But the hostile minority that embraces the disinformation spread by foreign adversaries and sore losers in this country can do real damage.
The big lie has led to a flood of violent threats against election officials and poll workers in Colorado.
Griswold alone received more than 900 threats last year over false allegations of voter fraud. For this and other reasons, the state has seen a 38% turnover rate among county clerks since 2020.
The Secretary of State’s office has established a $5 million fund for security personnel to protect county officials from people attempting to disrupt the election and to arrest those seeking to harm people or the process.
In Colorado, it is a crime to threaten poll workers. It is also illegal to openly carry firearms at polling places or at places where ballots are being counted.
“It can be really scary,” Griswold said. “No person should be subjected to death threats just for doing their job.”
The system that Trump blatantly and misleadingly calls a “cesspool” is one of the most respected electoral systems in the country and is called the “gold standard” by the League of Women Voters.
Every registered voter is verified for eligibility, Griswold said, and every signature on every ballot is checked to ensure each registered voter cast only one ballot. The state is also part of an interstate agreement that compares ballots to ensure no one votes more than once.
“If we find evidence of double voting, we will prosecute,” she said, “but that is extremely rare.”
However, no one takes this for granted. It requires constant vigilance.
Every county clerk and poll worker is under tremendous pressure to ensure that every voter is eligible to vote and every vote is counted. Protecting elections requires a willingness to hold every lawbreaker, every fraudster, every wrongdoer accountable.
Which brings us back to Tina Peters, the latest example of the system working.
Her sentencing is scheduled for October 3. We could see her in an orange jumpsuit on Election Day 2024.
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